The harm and distress caused by floods in Pakistan are difficult – if not impossible – to quantify, as a crisis of vast proportions keeps unfolding. They have killed around 1,000 people so far this summer, with at least 119 losing their lives in one 24-hour period last week. The number of those who have lost their homes, or been evacuated, is in the millions, with 300,000 dwellings destroyed. More than 33 million people are affected – around one in seven of the population. The country’s climate change minister, Sherry Rehman, says the floods – caused by torrential monsoon rains and melting glaciers – are the worst in living memory. Around a third of Pakistan is under water. Vitally important agricultural land will take months to drain.
Hunger, homelessness and the spread of water-borne diseases are among the most immediate problems, and humanitarian aid must be urgently ramped up if further suffering is to be prevented. Supplies have begun to arrive from Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, but Pakistan’s government is right to expect more – especially from the rich western nations that bear the greatest responsibility for global heating. Pakistan has more glaciers – 7,532 – than anywhere on Earth outside the polar regions, and is thus one of the countries most endangered by fossil fuel use and the temperature rises and other extreme weather that it causes.
Earlier this year, scientists reported their finding that human-made climate change made the deadly heatwave then afflicting Pakistan and India 30 times more likely. (Another study found that the deadly heatwave in 2010 had been made 100 times more likely.) Studies seeking to establish and quantify the precise contribution of greenhouse gases to this catastrophic monsoon have yet to appear. The complexity of weather systems means it can never be stated categorically that global heating was the single cause of a given event.
What is beyond question is that a human-made climate emergency is upon us. The floods in Pakistan, like recent heatwaves, droughts and fires, are but a glimpse of the destruction ahead. Pakistan’s government knows this. Rehman described the floods as a “climate catastrophe”. The foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, said: “We are devastated by climate disasters such as these time and time again.”
The International Monetary Fund will decide this week whether to release $1.2bn in payments tied to Pakistan’s bailout programme, and surely will not refuse. Rightly, critics including local journalists have pointed to the need for Pakistan’s authorities to update planning rules and policies to reflect current risks. Undoubtedly, the impact of the floods was made worse by a lack of preparedness. One man spoke of having built a house on the understanding that flood defences would soon be in place – only to see it washed away. In Pakistan, as elsewhere, people must adapt to survive.
But far from being a get-out clause for western governments and institutions, the necessity of adaptation in these worst-hit parts of the world makes it all the more imperative that they are helped. Climate finance, as this form of support is known, was among the unfinished business of the Cop26 summit last year. The principle underlying it goes beyond disaster relief or aid. Instead, the transfer of wealth built up over centuries of fossil fuel extraction is meant to enable a global transition away from carbon and towards a sustainable way of life. Pakistan’s devastation is a grim reminder of what is at stake.
